The Price of Vanity

Welcome to my latest beauty-related gameshow-esque endeavor, The Price of Vanity. In this feature, I’ll pick a beauty treatment and break down in what ways said treatment most negatively impacts your life (Time? Money? Sanity? Health? Um, ‘other’?), and you can decide for yourself if it’s really worth it.

First up: Tanning and Sunless Tanners

Tanning:

We all know what this involves: basting your ass up (with things like tanning lotion, baby oil and BUTTER) like a goddamned cornish hen to go roast in Mother Nature’s oven until the sun either goes down, or the smell of cracklins eminating from your dermis becomes too strong to bear and you have to go inside and microwave yourself some pork rinds. Whichever comes first, really.

Getting that perfect bacon-y glow can take hours, so the time factor on this is really high. As far as money goes, well, how much does butter go for these days? Yeah. It’s safe to say that the real price of tanning is health. I’m not gonna put up UV photos of people’s sun-fucked faces, canyon-sized wrinkles, or malignent growths that oddly resemble Whistler’s Mother. It’s my damn blog, and I’m gonna keep it pretty. For the love. If you need to see that shit, just Google ‘Melanoma’ and see if you ever feel like eating sun-dried tomatoes ever again.

Verdict: If you like hospitals, exasperated doctors, and skin-grafts, this vain extreme is totally worth it!

Tanning in a Salon:

Tanning salons always make me think of American Psycho, and that’s never good. The basic premise is: you walk in the door, give a start at the intense humidity and strong smell of bleach and tropical fruit-masked B.O. in the place (seriously, those places always smell like they’ve just cleaned up after a murder, and that there was a struggle before the Chiquita Banana woman went down), you buy a tanning package from Britney McFutureinporn, and then you lie down in an oddly-shaped acrylic clamshell coffin and mutter Arnold’s dialog from Total Recall to yourself. “Get you-ah ass to MAAAHS!” Seriously, the VR Headtrip to Mars machine from Total Recall looks about as comfortable as a tanning bed. And you stay in your UV closet until the timer that you trusted Perky McBoobjobforgraduation to set shuts off. Then you itch in places you never knew you could for days and days and eventually wind up with a skin infection from an improperly cleaned bed. Anyone hungry?

Tanning in a salon costs a lot of money. It’s like you’re paying for your skin cancer upfront, and then paying for it again once you have to get your cells scraped & analyzed. Tanning in a salon can also be time-consuming, but not nearly as much as lying in the sun. The cost, this time, is both money andhealth.

Verdict: If being surrounded by gum-popping, squealy-voiced high school girls who could already pass for middle-aged (if only their strawlike manes of chlorine blonde were cropped shorter) is your thing , then the tanning salon is the place for you!

Airbrush Tan/Spray Booth:

This is where you go back to the coconut crime scene salon, strip down to your skivvies, and let Candi McSpringbreak furrow her brow at your pasty legs and airbrish your spider veins away with an expensive gun. OR, the cheaper option is to put yourself through a human car wash of sorts and let a computer-controlled booth give you the George Hamilton Special.

Verdict: Bronzing this way on a regular basis will part you from your cash faster than a Roman pickpocket.

DIY Sunless Tanning:

The element of choice here is more of a hindrance than a help. You could got through about a hundred types of sunless tanner before finding one that works for you, and the variables are insane: What shade? What brand? Instant, gradual, “natural” or bronzer? Lotion, cream, spray, foam, or towlettes? So, the price that first comes to mind is sanity. But lemme help break it down: Pick the shade that’s not too different from your natural skintone. Brands: Neutrogena = no, always. Banana Boat = yes. Coppertone = iffy. L’Oreal = extreeeeemely hit-or-miss. Jergens = I don’t know. I’ve heard good things. But the winner = Ban de Soleil. I don’t know why, but I’ve gotten the best result from this brand. As for the mode d’employ- foam. Always foam, spray sometimes works ok, but foam is the best. Lotions have suuuuuucked every time I’ve tried them. Bronzers are poopy b/c they streak. I usually buy a dual-action spray tan & brionzer b/c it “shows where it goes”. Also, Dove used to make a soap called Energy Glow that had self-tanner in it, and that always worked well. The color is seriously subtle, but it’s good to use in the winter and between tanner applications.

But wait! There’s more! Here’s how to actually use the shit:

Shower and exfoliate– I scrub myself with leftover coffee grounds in the shower. It’s messy as hell, but kind of “green” in that it’s recycling and I don’t have to go out & buy anything to use as an exfoliator. I also use Olay in-shower body lotion, just so I can skip the next step.

Moisturize and let dry– If I wasn’t already doing this in the shower, I’d use Neutrogena body oil b/c the sesame oil absorbs really fast into the skin.

Apply and let dry– I apply the tanner with Platex yellow rubber house gloves on b/c no matter what they say, that shit WILL stain your palms and nails. Use a small amount of product on small areas and work slowly, rubbing each pump of foam in until it won’t spread anymore. Let yourself air dry all nekkid. This will take at least 20 minutes. Do not wear white on days you self-tan. And do not get wet for at least 3 hours, or you’ll streak. If your self tanner has a bronzer in it, it will streak anyway. To avoid this, let the tanner develop for 4 hours, then get back in the shower and rinse the yucky bronzer off. Your tan will look worlds better.

Doesn’t all this fucking work sound like FUN? It’s pretty clear that the real cost here is time.

Verdict: There are tons of better things you could be doing with your time, but if pasty pains you that much, it beats the hell out of cancer. Or looking like this:

.

Tanorexia rules! Leave me comments!

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28 Responses to “The Price of Vanity”

I sit out for about 15 minutes once a week in the morning once the weather gets nice with an eight sunscreen on. I am blessed in that I tan easily, and I tell myself the Vitamin D is beneficial. By June, I have a nice low-level tan on my arms and legs, which is all I’m really after. I occasionally use a Jergens self-tanner on my face because I never put my face in the sun.

That seems to do it.

I HATE how self-tanners smell though. So chemical-ly. I wish they could do something about that.

Trix- The self-tanners I use kind of smell like pee. Yuck. A couple of spritzes of vanilla body spray (the only scent that won’t make the pee smell worse, trust) helps tremendously.

Lipstick- Tanning before a vacation helps give you a “base tan” so that you don’t have the misfortune of getting burned on your trip. Which suuuuucks. I’ll probably have to do a little base tan before my honeymoon. Cuz I’m gonna be too preoccupied to keep putting on the SPF, knowhamsayin?

I am no good with self-tanner. Living on the redneck riviera, I must be tan in the summer (although I appreciate a nice pale girl with the figurative balls to blind people with the skin that will probs stay beautiful way longer than mine).

Therefore, I mystictan. It is so trashy and kinda expensive, but I, uh, pay the monthly fee (yes I’m a tanning salon member, sob) and it doesn’t come out so bad.

I’ve never ‘gone tanning’ in a salon, but now and then I’ll break out the self-tanner for my legs. In the summer my face, arms, and shoulders get a nice color, but no matter what, my legs are milky white. Mmmm.

I have experience with all of these modes of torture, as I was Britney McFutureinporn for a time. (sidenote: there is a perverse pleasure in being the Mensa version of an Olly girl, it involves dirty sex with hot strangers in the upgrade beds).

I like laying out best to get my tan on, but it takes forever and I’m the kind of person who ‘heats up’ really quickly so it actually gets really uncomfortable for me really quickly. For this reason I prefer to have a pool, actually I prefer to lay out in the pool but I don’t always get what I want. As I am approaching a new decade of my life though, I am cutting way back on my tanning and using self tanners more. Stinky, messy, uneven self tanners, ftw.

My pasty ass does not have the energy to do any of this shit, so I just embrace it, load on the SPF 60, and take a perverse pleasure in blinding people at the beach.
You seriously brightened my world with that Total Recall pic. I never made that connection before, but I’m going to associate that with tanning beds forever now.

God, I love a good roast in the sun. It makes me happy. It’s so fucking satisfying. You know what cell phones are great for? “Timing” your rotations, yo. Jonesey Kabob! I will make M rub Hawaiian Tropic Tanning Oil SPF4 all over me and feel the sweet chorus of the sun rays singing to my flesh.

I did the tanning booth once and it was fabulous! But I had a coupon so it was only $15!

I’ve come to terms with my freakishly pale self (one level up from an albino?) but i’m totally intrigued by the coffee grounds.

How do I use them? (I realize this is just to exfoliate). I dig them out of the coffee maker (reusable filter as I’m green, too!) and then do I mix them with anything or just slather them on my legs? Do I use the whole batch in one go?

My favourite sunblock is the Neutrogena Dry Touch, it really does feel dry and not goomygross and slimy like the other ones.

I grew up in suncancer nation. Word from the wise: it’s not worth it. I’m so pale I go green in the winter, and I was brought up by the beach and surfed as a teenager. In the end, having to change your outfit and foundation to match the ever changing colour of your skin is way too much effort.

Also a rip-off? All the different ‘levels’ of lotions the tanning salon swears you absolutely must purchase or else you won’t turn brown. Do you need a good lotion to tan indoors? Yes. Do you need a $120 package of Level 1, 2 & 3 lotions which you stagger along with the hugely overpriced upgrade package of mins in order to tan indoors? Uh, no.

Uh, Helmet Head, I’m not too sure I appreciate the thought of you (or anyone) “rubbing one out” in a tanning bed, but I’m sure folks here will appreciate yet ANOTHER reason why NOT to go tanning- the likelyhood that you’ll be lying in some stranger’s jizz. Thanks, brah.

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Having read this I believed it was really enlightening. I appreciate you spending some time and effort to put this article together. I once again find myself personally spending way too much time both reading and commenting. But so what, it was still worthwhile!|